Apple iPhone’s Safari browser capabilities

“Univeristy of Washington’s Emerging Technology group published notes from Apple’s Developing Web Sites for iPhone session from WWDC last week. The blog entry provides some interesting information for users and web developers alike about the iPhone’s capabilities,” arn reports for MacRumors.

MacDailyNews Note: The notes have been pulled from Univeristy of Washington’s Emerging Technology group’s site: http://depts.washington.edu/etech/?p=88

Apple listed what the iPhone offers for websites:
– the page view feature lets you look at multiple websites and documents by scrolling thru them one after another
– Full PDF support
– double tap for zoom in
– one finger as a mouse used to
— pan page
— press and hold to display the information bubble
– two fingers as a mouse used to
— pinch content to shrink – zoom out
— pan page
— scroll wheel events
– new telephone links allows you to integrate phone calls directly from your webpage. remember this is only on safari.
– built in google maps client for integrated mapping from your website

MacRumors also summarizes iPhone Web page size limitations and restrictions that Apple noted in developing for the iPhone along with Apple’s web design recommendations in the full article here.

40 Comments

  1. I had to laugh at the text used to indicate that the material had been deleted. Here’s a paste:

    “The topic you looking for have been deleted”.

    They’ve probably outsourced their website support to India . . . 😎

    In any case, such “erudition” doesn’t reflect very positively on UoW IMO.

  2. The web site of my credit union here in the USA works fine with Safari 2.0 for the Mac as well as several other sites (credit cards for example) which require security. I have had success with other sites that require security by using the emulate feature found under the “Debug” menu item.

    Peace.

  3. Wells Fargo explicitly supports Safari – 100%. And as an added bonus, Wells Fargo Bank is the *only* U.S. bank to have the highest possible credit rating from both Moody’s Investors Service, “Aaa,” and Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, “AAA.”

  4. flash wasn’t available because we didn’t want to give Adobe all the specs on the damn thing.

    once its out – it won’t take us too long to get the Photoshop guys making their cute video-y plug-in done.

    mdn magic word: soon

    as in, when the flash plugin will be available.

  5. Here’s a question . . .

    Will iPhone run some kind of text reader with search capabilities (for downloading books, etc.) such as iSilo? Or will Apple have its own software built into the iPhone for text reading as it does with Preview as an Acrobat Reader replacement on the mac? At first I thought it was a given, but with all this about web based apps I am curious what it will do?

  6. “Wells Fargo explicitly supports Safari – 100%.”

    you are welcome.

    when safari first came out my wife was the lead auditor at wells, and i emailed the tech lead and pointed out that Apple had a new browser, and they better support it. 24 hours after i emailed him….

    …it ain’t what you know.

  7. I do all my banking online with Chase, Washington Mutual, and Wells Fargo. All features work just fine. They all interface with Quicken for Mac, too. If your bank doesn’t support Mac, take your money elsewhere. There are many that do.

  8. Safari works with:
    HSBC in the UK works fine. Commonwealth in Oz works fine.

    St George in Oz used to need ‘Block pop-ups’ off before running with Safari 2, but this is no longer needed with Safari 3 ßeta. No obvious change in web site, so presume it is a better browser. It had a problem with IE pop-ups in XP too.

  9. the other steve jobs: “flash wasn’t available because we didn’t want to give Adobe all the specs on the damn thing.

    once its out – it won’t take us too long to get the Photoshop guys making their cute video-y plug-in done.”

    This is certainly plausible. I would have to say, with Apple making a bid deal out of the iPhone being “the real internet” they pretty much have to make it flash compatible. They don’t have to make it Java compatible, but Flash is very much considered part of ‘the real internet’ by the wide majority of internet users.

    Granted a lot of Flash websites stink, but let the users determine which of them they like and want to visit.

  10. shen“you are welcome.

    when safari first came out my wife was the lead auditor at wells, and i emailed the tech lead and pointed out that Apple had a new browser, and they better support it. 24 hours after i emailed him….”

    Interesting story. If that’s true, then mad props to you!

  11. KeyBank (Key Corp.)…. here are their requirements…

    “We require Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher or Netscape 5.0 or higher”….

    I figure that eventually they will get wise….but then again, they probably run Windows 95 on all their drones…

  12. All banks fine for me has far has I know!
    HSBC, UBS, BNP & post offices mainland Europe.
    Actually check a account on BNP I was able to get info 24H’s before the bank manager in my district, he “they” use IBM machines “MS” of-course.

  13. @the other steve jobs / Twighlight Moon

    I think we forget that Flash is a competitor of Apples QuickTime technology. I suspect Flash was left out for a reason. Apple made it clear that apps that use web 2.0 standards will work, and flash is about as far away from web 2.0 compliant as you can get. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Flash support.

  14. Infomercials said “Wachovia for small business does not work with Safari, they are so dumb as to use ActiveX menus.”

    I don’t know what kind of issues you’re having there but I’ve been using it with Safari 2 and 3 with no problems whatsoever.

  15. @Basil Crichlow

    Yes, I have the same problem – enter your details and the page refreshes blank rather than proceeding to the next level. F’Fox fixes the problem. No idea if it is a Safari or HSBC code error, but it has been this way for a couple of weeks so needs fixing.

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